Yves Hanoulle is asking a question each day for people to think about, through his @Retroflection Twitter account. Each day someone is invited to respond, and today I have been asked to answer:

What does being a team really mean (as opposed to the way the word is often misapplied)

To “be a team” in my experience, means to:

  • Share goal(s), to have a common purpose for working together
  • Commit collectively to getting work done, in a spirit of collaboration
  • Respect each other’s differences
  • Trust that each person is competent, will raise issues and follow through on commitments
  • Have the courage to remove obstacles in the team’s path, including resolving conflicts within the team

Those familiar with Scrum will notice my team attributes are based on the 5 core Scrum values.

These attributes are not easy to attain. It takes time to become a team, and a lot of hard work. Just ask my wife.

Now it is your turn to answer: what does being a team mean to you?

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10 Years of Innovation, SSM-style

December 7, 2009

I’ll be helping with live blogging the Innovation Centre’s 10 year anniversary. All the action is taking place at the Grand Theatre, 1 pm, Tuesday December 8. Can’t make it? Come back here to see live coverage, including photos. Rumor has it there will be a big cake and unveiling of SSMIC’s new logo.
More details [...]

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AYE 2009: People, process and tools, in that order

November 19, 2009

Look around you. Things don’t have to be this way. – Jerry Weinberg, session leader at AYE
Relaxing. Welcoming. Insightful. Practical. Intimate. Grounded. Those were a few of the words uttered last night by some first-time participants at the AYE conference. One person remarked, “[At the end of the conference] I woke up late for my [...]

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Weekly post (weekly)

November 14, 2009

Human Systems Dynamics Institute
Recommended by Esther Derby to learn more about making change happen in organizations.
tags: no_tag

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

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Weekly post (weekly)

November 7, 2009

Mystery Games and Parties
tags: no_tag

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

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Plone 1% manifesto

November 4, 2009

photo (CC) mrtopf on flickr.com
Lately I’ve been coaching a team with the talented Jordan Baker and Rob Jackiewicz of Scryent, the driving force behind Plone in the Toronto area. When they left for the just finished Plone Conference 2009, I wished I was going with them, not so much because of Plone (though I did [...]

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Weekly post (weekly)

October 31, 2009

Perfect Setup: Ubuntu Hardy+Nginx+MySQL5+PHP5+Wordress
tags: wordpress, nginx

HashLove. Greeting Cards for the Twitterverse « HashLove.com
tags: twitter

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

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Weekly post (weekly)

October 17, 2009

Why Jailbreak Your iPhone
Lots of great examples of apps and tweaks you can make to the iPhone not possible without jailbreaking
tags: iphone

I Love Pair-Programming » Absolutely No Machete Juggling
“I see pairing work so well every day that I consider my career prior to my current job to have consisted mostly of wasting time. “
tags: pairprogramming, [...]

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Path to life

October 15, 2009

This is my 2nd time participating in Blog Action Day, a worldwide effort by more than 6,000 bloggers to focus attention for one day on climate change, perhaps the greatest challenge our generation will face.
It’s easy to feel overwhelmed and helpless when faced with such a daunting challenge.
Life for me is a series of small [...]

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Weekly post (weekly)

October 10, 2009

Food for Thought: Project Retrospectives
tags: retrospectives, agile

Social Media Network Icons | Komodo Media
tags: no_tag

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

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